


Hit and Run

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2019 [3]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Anxiety, Description of Past Blood and Gore, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Hit by a car, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Strong Language, Violence, hit and run, past canonical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-16 20:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19325620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Pre-Game. Hudson’s got a Thing about her coworkers being in distress.





	Hit and Run

“ _Deputy Hudson?_ ”  
  
Deputy Hudson slowed her truck and reached for her radio. “Go for Hudson,” She responded.  
  
“ _Well, Deputy Pratt’s up near the PIN-K0 station and he’s asking for backup. He’s pulled over a gentleman with a warrant out for his arrest, and I think he might be a **touch** nervous._”  
  
Hudson sighed. She wished Nancy wouldn’t say stuff like that over the radio; hell only knew who was listening. Zip Kupka definitely tuned in to their frequency, and the Peggies probably did too for the sake of keeping an eye on the local law enforcement’s movements. It would sure explain how John Seed managed to find his way to any scene that needed to be smoothed over with that silver tongue of his. Point being, none of them needed to suspect or know that Pratt was nervous about pulling over suspects or making arrests without backup. “Alright, I’m about five minutes out.”  
  
Why would Pratt need backup? He wasn’t green; he’d arrested people before, including some very belligerent, violent, armed drunks. Hudson felt her anxiety creep up a little. It wouldn’t shock her if Nancy had gotten an edited version of whatever was actually going on with Pratt. Maybe he’d held back the seriousness of the situation not to tip off the suspect, or maybe things were a touch more dire than she’d realized.  
  
Hudson shifted in her seat uncomfortably, keeping an eye out as she got closer to PIN-K0. _This is stupid_ , she thought, trying to control her breathing and keep herself grounded in reality. _Staci’s fine. He’s fine. We don’t need to go flashing back to what happened to Danny every time a coworker’s in a sticky situation._  
  
Maybe it was the fact that the area surrounding the station looked a lot like Kootenai Ridge, or maybe it was just that she was building shit up to crisis levels unnecessarily, but Hudson couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the day Danny was shot and now.  
  
_This is confirmation bias,_ she told herself.  
  
_Your anxiety-fucked brain wants you to panic over nothing_ , she told herself.  
  
_Ninety-nine percent of my time at this job does not involve my coworkers getting shot. Why would today be any different?_ She told herself.  
  
It was fine.  
  
Hudson was just being stupid.  
  
She was going to find Pratt, yank his chain about calling for backup, and then go right back to her-  
  
**_BANG!BANG!BANG!_**  
  
Hudson’s heart damn near stopped.  
  
_Why am I hearing gunshots?_  
  
She nearly floored it, but caught herself- you couldn’t floor it in the Whitetails, especially on the hilly area surrounding the radio-station. That was a good way to get into an accident. She accelerated up the hill, heart pounding, mouth dry, until she saw Pratt’s truck alone on the road, no other cars nearby, and on the ground-  
  
_No._  
  
-Pratt was lying on the pavement, not moving.  
  
**_NO._**  
  
Hudson’s stomach clenched, seized up so hard she thought she would puke. She slammed the brakes, jumped out of the truck and sprinted towards Pratt, stumbling with panic. “Staci!”  
  
_no no no no no no no this can’t be happening again I can’t do this again-_  
  
As she got closer, Pratt moved: He shifted, pressed down on the pavement like he was trying to push himself up but couldn’t quite manage it. Hudson fell to her knees beside him, quickly looking him over- no blood, no visible injuries, but relief did not come. “What happened? What happened?”  
  
“I got hit.”  
  
“You got shot?”  
  
“No, no,” Pratt grunted, “Hit by a car. Clipped, more like it, but it _fuckin’_ hurt and I think my leg might be broken.”  
  
The breath Hudson didn’t know she was holding came out in a rush, so quick she felt dizzy. “Fuck,” She whispered, unable to say anything else. Being hit by a car wasn’t good, but at least he hadn’t been shot. At least he wasn’t holding his guts in, blood gurgling from his mouth-  
  
_Stop, stop, stop!_  
  
If she went down that road there was no coming back, and Pratt needed her to stay in the here and now.  
  
Hudson went for her radio, barked their location and a request for an ambulance and backup into it harsher than was necessary. When she was done, she gathered her thoughts- and then stopped, confused. “Wait, wait, I _know_ I heard gunshots. Was that you or them?”  
  
“Me.” Pratt managed to rearrange himself so that he was lying on his elbows on the pavement, leg stretched out as best he could. “Fucker ran right fuckin’ into me, Joey, and I guess I didn’t feel the pain right then because I just got my gun out and popped off a couple of shots, shit…” He grimaced and reached for his leg before pulling his hand back.  
  
Hudson got up and ran back to her truck, yanking her jacket and a lukewarm bottle of water out of the cup-holder before running back to Pratt. She folded the jacket and slipped it under his head so he could lie down properly; she offered him the bottle, but he pushed it away. “The pain’s really bad, if anything goes down my throat right now I’m gonna puke,” Pratt said.  
  
“It’s here if you want it. Did you recognize the guy? He from around here?”  
  
“Kinda. I think I’ve seen him at the Spread Eagle before. I’ve still got his license here, somewhere- I don’t know. I ran his information, saw the warrant, and figured I should call for back-up.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“The warrant was for _allegedly_ shooting three people. I emphasize _alleged_ because he’s clearly a stable and upstanding individual.”  
  
Hudson huffed a breathless laugh, covering her eyes with a hand. “Christ.” She shook her head. “Is there anything I can do for your leg?”  
  
“No. Better leave it to the paramedics.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Yeah.” Pratt reached out and patted her leg. “Take a breath, Joey, I’m not dead. I’m not gonna die.”  
  
“I know.” Hudson took a shuddering breath. “I know. I know, I just- I saw you on the ground and my mind immediately went to- you know where it went to.”  
  
“Yeah, I do.” Pratt had still been a Junior Deputy when Danny had been killed. He could be a little piss sometimes, but Hudson gave him a lot of credit for not immediately turning around and walking out the door when one deputy was shot dead and the other had lost her shit for a while afterwards as a result. “I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, I think I’m gonna puke, and I’m gonna break that fucker’s legs if I get a hold of him again, but other than that I’m fine.”  
  
Hudson squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll hold him while you do it.”  
  
It took the ambulance fifteen minutes to arrive- such was the pitfall of living in a very rural community with relatively few residents. “The hell happened to you?” One of the paramedics, Charlie, asked as they pulled out the stretcher.  
  
“Hit by a car,” Hudson informed them as she rose from the pavement. “He’s in a lot of pain, says the left leg is the worst.” She stood back as they loaded Pratt into the ambulance. “I’ll come see you later,” Hudson said. “In the meantime, I’ll try to track the guy down.”  
  
“Wait, wait!” Pratt called before the paramedics could shut the door. “Wait, in my truck, I’ve got the guy’s license plate written down. Use that.”  
  
“Will do!” Hudson said with a wave.  
  
The doors closed, the ambulance left, and Hudson was left alone on the road.  
  
She stood for a moment in the silence, breathing slowly and trying to bring her blood-pressure down. “Okay,” She whispered to herself. “Okay.” Hudson paced over to Pratt’s truck and found the information on the seat. More than enough to issue an APB, which she conveyed to Nancy over the radio.  
  
“ _Copy that, Deputy. Sheriff Whitehorse wants you to stay put for now until Pratt’s truck can be towed._ ”  
  
Hudson was at once relieved and disappointed; the pressure for fixing the problem was off her shoulders for now. But it did not alleviate her _desire_ to fix the problem. Still, if Whitehorse said ‘stay put’, then Hudson would stay put.  
  
“Will do. Hudson out.”  
  
She got into her truck, set her head down on the wheel, and closed her eyes until the tow-truck came.  
   
[---]  
   
Hudson strolled into Hope County Memorial five hours later, when it was almost completely dark.  
  
Pratt seemed to be asleep, but when Hudson rapped on the door to his room he was alert almost immediately. “Joey! Come on in, sit down, make yourself at home. Don’t touch the drugs, though, those are mine.”  
  
Hudson snorted as she dragged a chair over to the bed. “Got the good stuff, I assume?”  
  
“I’m high as _shit_ ,” Pratt chuckled. “I don’t feel a thing. It’s awesome.”  
  
“That’s good. Is the leg broken?”  
  
“Actually, no: My hip dislocated. They relocated it- hurt like a bitch, hence the drugs. Rest of my leg and hip on that side are pretty banged up and bruised, but otherwise I’m fine. I’ll be on crutches for a couple of weeks. Did you catch the guy?”  
  
“Whitehorse did. Asshole’s getting charged with vehicular assault, fleeing from an officer, fleeing from the scene of a crime- I think Whitehorse is flipping through the laws and just ticking off anything he thinks will stick.”  
  
“Won’t catch me complaining.” Pratt’s expression grew a little more serious. “How are you doing?”  
  
Hudson’s eyes widened. “Me?”  
  
“Yeah. I thought you were going to pass out earlier.”  
  
Out of the heat of the moment, away from the all-consuming terror of ‘immediate emergency warranting a strong reaction’, it embarrassed Hudson to know that her trauma regarding Danny’s death was so obvious to the people around her. She didn’t like being so transparent. “I’m fine. It was an overreaction.”  
  
“I’d say it was pretty logical, considering the situation and knowing how this sort of situation ended the last time you were in it.”  
  
Hudson was quiet for a bit. Some counseling and anti-anxiety meds had managed the fallout from what happened to Danny well enough; she was never diagnosed with PTSD (the symptoms had never become severe enough) and only occasionally experienced these spikes in anxiety, always centered around whether or not Whitehorse or Pratt were in danger or not.  
  
She was dealing, and fairly well.  
  
But when it did hit her, it hit _hard_.  
  
“Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re not dead.”  
  
“So am I,” Pratt agreed. “And thanks for coming along so quickly, instead of dragging your ass like you usually do.”  
  
“Next time I’ll leave you to suffer a little while longer.”  
  
“May not have a chance: I overheard Nancy whispering about Whitehorse hiring a new deputy; that means you’re probably going to get put out to pasture. Nice working with you, though.” He gave Hudson a mock-disappointed pout.  
  
“You want me to dislocate your other hip, asshole?”  
  
“I’d like to see you try.”  
  
Hudson half-lunged towards him, and Pratt jerked back in the bed in alarm. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”  
  
They chuckled for a moment, pleasantly calm.  
  
“I need to head home,” Hudson said after a time, getting to her feet. “Since you weren’t fast enough to dodge a sedan, I’ve got to pick up your slack until this new deputy emerges from the mist to take your place.”  
  
“You’d be so goddamn bored if I wasn’t there to entertain you, just admit it.”  
  
“Right. Good night, Staci.”  
  
“Wait, wait, wait, hold up.” Pratt pushed himself up a little more in the bed and motioned for Hudson to come back over. “Come on, come here, I’m drugged up and sappy.” Hudson rolled her eyes, but obeyed. She leaned down and hugged him tightly, and Pratt returned it. “Thanks for today,” He muttered into her ear.  
  
“No problem. Just- No repeat performances, okay?”  
  
“Will do, Joey.”  
  
-End


End file.
